Uber and the gaggle of tech companies pouring money into autonomous vehicle development aren’t really focused on safety first.
That’s because their true bottom line is to be the Amazon of autonomous cars so they can have a dozen or so semi-trucks — driverless, of course, to keep costs low and profits high — making hourly trips to the bank.
Yes, the experts say that eliminating human error will reduce traffic accidents. They concede there will still be accidents, injuries and deaths but we should take comfort in their hypothesis that the overall carnage will drop.
It’s like saying technology can be invented to reduce the annual power costs of a refrigerator to 10 cents and in order to do that they need to test refrigerators in actual homes. And, oh by the way, the technology is such that while they are working out the kinks it will kill a few people a year but the tradeoff is worth it because less people will die from greenhouse gases on a yearly basis created from electricity production to power refrigerators.
Yes, safety is the supposed selling point of autonomous driving technology but let’s be honest. They need people to buy such vehicles. Buyers will more likely be smitten with the idea they don’t had to drive allowing them to do other things while they are motoring around such as playing video games.
There is also a difference between creating an inanimate object that can maim and kill if not used properly by a human in full control of it and creating a machine that kills on its own.
Uber, once again, did itself no favors from deploying their corporate driving strategy of rewriting standards as they see fit and taking short cuts by determining it was OK to hire a convicted felon — the driver was  convicted of attempted armed robbery —who also has a slew of tickets for traffic violations.
But what is even more disturbing is how cities and states salivating over snaring tech dollars seem to be willing to jeopardize their residents in a bid to get Uber et al to locate autonomous driving test facilities within their jurisdictions and use public streets as their proving grounds.
If you doubt that’s the case read what the experts are saying in the aftermath of the Uber car killing the woman walking her bicycle in Tempe, Arizona.
They are saying the radar sensors the Uber vehicle was using not only should have detected the woman but it is supposed to operate at its absolute best in darkness.
Some say the radar apparently couldn’t distinguish between the lady’s handbag and shrubbery. If the radar isn’t that reliable then why in the hell is it being allowed on the streets driving a car? The argument, of course, is they have to test it in the “real world.”
The problem is the “real world” has real people who unwittingly are guinea pigs and are essentially viewed as collateral damage. While deaths are going to occur, a woman killed by an Uber test car would not have happened if Arizona hadn’t turned its state into one big test lab for a profit driven entity.
Uber et al may learn from their mistakes. But if you look at how big this country is and the endless variables on and along roads, Sunday’s sacrifice of a woman with no skin in the game seeking untold riches that would come from a firm winning the autonomous driving development race to get a product to market is just the beginning.
Those that argue some lives have to be lost for the greater good and point to others that have died during the development of various products very nicely gloss other one key point. The woman killed neither volunteered or was paid to be part of the experiment. The State of Arizona turned streets into a gigantic proving ground for Uber and others.
And the safeguards that Uber promised would be in place such as human drivers who would be ready to take over in an instant not only is iffy at best but it was made less effective by their apparent choice in employees.
It is apparent Uber et al go on the cheap opting to hire drivers that are neither engineers or already demonstrate a high level of commitment to safe driving. Having a history of traffic ticket violations doesn’t exactly scream an attentive driver.
In one accident Uber has managed to give credence to the arguments against both driver assisted semi-autonomous driving and autonomous driving.
Obviously there is the undisputed fact a semi-autonomous system that requires a driver to take over when a challenging situation arises is only effective if the driver still pays attention to driving. If someone being paid to test drive such a car can’t stay focused on the task at hand then imagine the case with everyone else.
And if the radar sensor can’t tell the difference between a handbag and a shrub alongside the roadway how is it going to distinguish between a 5-year-old kid and a fire hydrant?

This column is the opinion of executive editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.  He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.